


the world's a stage (but i'm not an actor)

by raggirare



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 00:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raggirare/pseuds/raggirare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the curse of the middle blocker. Officially in play and yet doomed to watch from the sidelines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world's a stage (but i'm not an actor)

**Author's Note:**

> Something I've been meaning to write for literal weeks. Set after chapter 148.
> 
> Excuse any terrible English. Not my first language, it's 3am and I'm sick. But please enjoy.

_Drop._

It’s a mantra running through his head, eyes never once leaving the blur of a ball.

_Drop._

It’s a sigh of relief on his lips when rubber hits wood. One that earns him a side-glance from the second-year setter standing beside him.

Match point.

Another whistle.

Matsukawa tosses Hanamaki a towel and Iwaizumi a bottle, and he gives Kindaichi a well-meaning clap on his shoulder. It startles the first year, but then he relaxes under the hand and gives his upperclassman a grateful smile. It’s a smile the third year returns before they both turn their attention to the gathered conversation at hand. Benched players doing everything they can to make sure their court players are looked after. Third years passing around knowledge from experience. Calm exteriors that only their year-mates can see through.

“Just focus on this point.”

_Focus on getting me back on that court._

It’s Kindaichi who replies, but it’s grey eyes that his warm brown ones meet, strawberry blond strands shifting with the wordless nod he receives. Iwaizumi and OIkawa give him the same reaction as he meets their eyes as well, and, as they gather in for a cheer, he feels his captain’s supportive hand on his back.

It leaves a warmth that grows hotter and hotter as the point drags on.

_Drop._

Burns so hot he’s sure it will scar.

_Drop._

Stings with every smack of skin against the ball.

_**Drop**._

Throbs with every drawn gasp of the spectators.

**_ Drop._ **

Freezes ice cold as rubber hits wood again and again.

A quickening volley of bounces to replace the beating of his heart.

He’s not even sure what expression is sitting on his face when his eyes find Oikawa’s, the captain still frozen in his receive. Shock settling into the hearts of his teammates as the cheering of their opponents echoes in the large gym. Shock that keeps them all composed and in one piece as they gather at the next to shake the hands of the Karasuno players. Keeps them focused and unshifting as they gather in around Coach Irihata.

They’re strong. They’re schooled. They’re practice and well together.

Until Irihata speaks and they all break _._

Matsukawa’s heart drops in his chest. Shatters. His lips quiver and his eyes water and well, but nothing falls. He doesn’t let anything fall. He can’t let anything fall. A hand runs down over his face and barely anything comes away with it. Dark eyes flicker to his friends’ faces and the slick layer of sweat covering their skin, reflecting under the lights. His other hand clenches at his side.

He can’t.

The middle blocker follows his team in to thank their cheering squad. Follow’s Hanamaki’s lead in smacking his hand against Iwaizumi’s back. This isn’t the time or the place for self-destruction. There’ll be plenty of that later.

And it’s exactly what they do when they finally return to the school grounds. Finally debrief. Finally breakdown as a team. Finally send their juniors home and their coaches home and take the clubroom all for themselves.

It takes Iwaizumi all of two minutes to destroy everything he can destroy the space almost beyond recognition. Anything not bolted down or locked away ends up knocked down and on the floor, but none of them stop him. They let him vent while OIkawa sits on a bench, eyes cascading silent tears, and Matsukawa leans back against a wall, eyes dry and arms folded on his chest, and Hanamaki—

“I swear to god if you’re not crying because you think you don’t deserve it, I’ll beat you up until you do cry.” A distant gaze focuses in on the face suddenly only inches from his own, and Matsukawa is sure he’s never seen a storm like this in Hanamaki’s eyes. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you _dare._ ” Long fingers grab the front of his shirt and he feels himself tugged off the wall. Only briefly, though, before he’s pushed back against the hard surface, with just enough pressure to sting his upper back. “Don’t you dare…” The lecture he was expecting is lost into a new round of tears and the attempt at an intimidating face is lost into his chest.

“He’s right.” 

A voice to his left pulls Matsukawa’s attention to it (and he’s suddenly reminded of just how ugly a crier Oikawa is, especially when he’s trying to talk through those tears). 

“You worked… just as hard as the rest of us, Mat…. Ev.. .. .ou weren.. on the cou.. ..e whol time…” Trying to speak through his blubbering doesn’t help Oikawa at all and it leaves many of his words lost and drowned into his sobs. “Ev.. .. .ou weren.. ..ere a. ..e end…”

The middle blocker’s arm lifts (his left one) to hug around the captain’s shoulders and pull him close and it’s then that Oikawa gives up. Matsukawa’s other hand lifts to toy with the strawberry blond strands at his chest, fingertips providing a gentle massage against Hanamaki’s scalp and the back of his neck. His eyes are elsewhere, though, following the vice-captain. Iwaizumi had picked himself up from where he’d been crouched on the ground in tears so he could join his friends and the taller greets him with a bowed head leaning on top of the one that drops onto his shoulder.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do what we did without you, Matsukawa.” Where Hanamaki’s tone had been distressed and Oikawa’s had been lost in his emotions, Iwaizumi’s voice is much more even. Quiet, and very cautious with his word choice, and never lifting his forehead from the middle blocker’s shoulder, but still even. “You shut down number ten. That was you… You noticed it and you executed it perfectly. If you hadn’t… we’d probably have never taken a set for ourselves. And you shut their other spikers down, and you broke through their blockers as well. You gave us a chance. You fought just as hard as we did, no matter if you were on the court or not. Even in that last play, you were still analyzing everything and trying to turn it back around. Right until the last moment… this is your loss as well, Matsu… this was all of us together.”

Matsukawa’s eyes close and for a long moment there’s silence (broken by Oikawa’s ugly sobbing and Hanamaki’s shaking breathes and the shifting of Iwaizumi wrapping his arm around the middle blocker’s back). Eventually, though, something changes in him, and when tears fall from his eyes, they’re accompanied by quiet, choked sobs, caught by the vice-captain’s dark strands. He feels something warm and wet hit his arm and he realizes that Iwaizumi is crying again as well, and it makes him press his face into the other’s hair as much as he can stand (and tighten his arms around Oikawa’s shoulders and press his hand to the back of Hanamaki’s neck).

Three more arms wrap around him, one from the left side of his back and two from in front wrapping around his torso almost desperately. 

And they stay there, late into the night, each drawing support and true mourning from each other (and then collapsing from exhaustion into a half-dressed pile on the floor of Iwaizumi’s room after they finally run out of tears because his is the closest to school).


End file.
